


moonlight

by worstgirl



Series: newsies/bmc [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Bittersweet, Drawing, F/M, Jake-centric, M/M, Metaphors, Mild Internalized Homophobia, Pining, Rated for swearing, Teasing, deere, dillinjer - Freeform, jakemy, newsies au!!, sibling like relationship between brooke and jake, somewhat historical accuracy, wikihow to tag, written out accents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23337541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worstgirl/pseuds/worstgirl
Summary: i got no use for moonlightor sappy poetrylove at first sight’s for suckersat least it used to be~~jake really likes pining for people he can’t have.
Relationships: Christine Canigula & Jake Dillinger, Jake Dillinger & Brooke Lohst, Jake Dillinger & Jenna Rolan, Jake Dillinger & Michael Mell, Jeremy Heere & Esther Heere, Jeremy Heere & Original Female Character, Jeremy Heere/Jake Dillinger
Series: newsies/bmc [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689865
Comments: 12
Kudos: 16





	moonlight

Jake Kelly was fucked. To be fair, he was usually fucked, considering he was a homeless kid living on a fire escape with barely even a nickel to his name, but he’d really done it for himself this time. 

Backstage in Jenna’s theater had become like a second home to him, or more like a first, since his ‘penthouse’ was little more than a slab of metal with a single blanket. And here he was, with Jeremiah Jacobs and his little sister, Esther, sitting next to him. None of the fellas had ever been brought here, except that one time he’d snuck Michael in with his odd love-hate relationship with tragic romances to see a Shakespeare play, but he’d spent the entire time just asking him what they meant and wouldn’t stop saying shit like ‘forsooth good maiden’ over and over.

Jeremy, on the other hand, was silent, watching Jenna perform with an awed look on his face. He sat on the wooden floor next to Jake, his eyes shining in the stage lights and a small smile on his face, knees pulled to his chest and curls tumbling over his forehead. He was almost enchanted by it, and Jake didn’t think he was enchanted by Jenna, either, like most of the men in the crowd. He was transfixed. The light from the stage, with colored paper over the fancy electric lights that Jenna had been so thrilled to show off, cast a shadow over half of his face, leaving his freckles looking like a constellation across the night sky. 

Before he even knew what he was doing, Jake pulled out his tiny stick of charcoal and the paper he’d kept from yesterday, starting to sketch. The curve of Jeremy’s jaw, the curl in front of his ear, the way his lips were slightly parted as if about to speak, his eyes wide and bright. Jake knew exactly what colour they were, too, despite barely knowing the kid. Bright blue-green, with a bit of yellow around the middle. 

He saw Jeremy looking over at him, and the quizzical smile tugging at his lips with his eyebrows furrowed together made a small twist in his stomach and an odd feeling of heat on his face. 

For the longest time, Jake had no use for all the sappy stuff— poetry, songs about moonlight, love at first sight. That was for suckers and people who were just asking to be duped. That was for the people who were lured in by his fantastic headlines to buy a pape they couldn’t return. At least, that’s how he used to think. Then came Jeremy, with his quiet intelligence and stubbornness and his adorable face— no, that was bad, he couldn’t think that way about a boy. It wasn’t right. He should just stick to girls, like that pretty dark haired girl from earlier he noticed in the private box.

The main lights flicked on, and Jake quickly shut the paper to cover up the drawing, despite Esther’s pestering questions and Jeremy’s questioning glances. “You two’s should be getting home, right?” He said, shoving the paper in his back pocket. “I’m gonna go talk to Jenna, then I, uh, saw someone I knew.” If he wasn’t mistaken, Jake could have sworn Jeremy shot a look towards the dark haired girl in the box for a moment. It looked almost… jealous? No, it couldn’t be. That was wishful thinking.

“Yeah, Esther, Mom’s probably waiting for us.” Jeremy mumbled, taking his little sister’s hand and pulling her away. Jake tried to force down the feeling of something in the pit of his stomach. It was almost… betrayal? Disappointment? He wanted to grab Jeremy’s arm and pull him back, tell him that… that what? By the time he reprimanded himself, Jeremy was already gone. 

He spent the rest of his night flirting with the pretty dark haired girl he’d seen on the street earlier that day. She was just his type— pretty, witty, and she could probably smack him down with his own words if she wanted to, which she so clearly did. Usually, that would make him even more interested.

But that night, when he still had the drawing of Jeremy in his pocket, the feeling in his gut still hadn’t gone away. He sat up with only the light from the candle next to him lighting his tiny penthouse in the sky. Brooke was up too, and she looked over at Jake. “Whatcha doing there?” She shifted closer, despite the fact that both of them saw how the small girl winced. Her leg was never quite right— incident with the mills a while ago, something about a machine malfunctioning and catching her skirt. She didn’t wear skirts anymore, and her usual blonde hair was cropped short. 

“Trying to draw, but I can’t get it right.” He huffed, looking at the doodles of Jeremy on the paper. Him laughing, him smiling, the look on his face when Esther blurted out something possibly offensive that looked nearly ashamed, yet somehow attractive all at once. 

“Are you kidding me? That looks so much like him.” Brooke pulled the paper out of his hands, looking at it. “This is the best picture I’ve ever seen, Jake, it looks a lot like him.”

“It don’t!” Jake snatched it back, his cheeks flushed. “It’s not- there’s something that ain’t right about it.” He mumbled, trying to add another bit of shading to Jeremy’s face. 

“It looks great!” 

“It ain’t perfect enough!” 

That made Brooke’s face break into a huge, teasing grin, and Jake was reminded of how easy it was to forget she was a girl. “Oh, perfect, huh?” She said, obviously sounding amused. She leaned her chin on her hand, grinning at him boyishly. 

Not many people got the odd view of a blushing Jake, but Brooke definitely did. They’d been nearly inseparable since the age of 12, when Brooke had, in a fit of childish rage, socked Jake in the jaw when he tried to tell her how to sell papers. An odd meeting, but no different than most of the kids there. “I just meant— I meant the drawing!” He protested, looking wholly embarrassed. He tried to angle himself to catch the last remaining flickering light from the street lamp far below. 

“You think he’s perfect, don’tcha? Aww, that’s so cute.” She said teasingly, tapping Jake’s nose. “He’s makin’ ya blush! Ain’t no one’s made ya blush in ages.” 

“He— He ain’t like that.” He muttered, looking down at the panel of faces, broken up with words about the trolley strike, and the woman who was smashing up bars with a hatchet in a bid for prohibition, and advertisements for Jacobi’s sandwich sales. “He’s somethin’ special.” 

“Sure he is.” Brooke said, and at Jake’s face, she held up her hands. “Honest! He seems like a nice kid. Smart, independent, good-looking, talked back to ya. Just your type.”

“I don’t have a type!” Jake mumbled, turning the charcoal in his fingers, ignoring the way it stained. 

“Ya sure do. Anyone who can talk back to the famous Jake Kelly ‘mediately makes ya swoon.” Brooke put a hand to her forehead, imitating a swooning woman, eyelids fluttering and all. Jake reached out, smacking the brim of her hat down. She laughed in indignation. “Ay, I got a limp already, I don’t needs blindness, too! You’re mean, Kelly.” Her tongue stuck out from under the brim. 

“Go to sleep, ya dumb crip.” He said, not unaffectionately. 

“A’right, but we’s gonna talk about ya runnin’ off to Santa Fe with some other man in the mornin’.” Brooke said, shifting her leg with her to curl up on the other end of the fire escape. 

Jake rolled his eyes, smiling a bit. “G’night, Brooke.” He said gently, and the girl murmured it back, holding her crutch to her like a security toy. 

In the silence that followed, Jake found himself staring at the moon, wondering if Jeremy was looking at the same one right now. He was probably home, with his family, getting ready to sleep. For a moment he saw what that looked like, Jeremy’s face illuminated in the soft night light, all dark shadows and soft features. He folded up his drawings, pushing them into the broken drainpipe where he kept all his masterpieces. As he lay down on the cold, hard fire escape, shutting his eyes, all he could see was the look of pure awe on the other boy’s face as he watched Jenna sing. He wanted to make Jeremy that happy all the time.  _ Tomorrow _ , he promised.  _ Tomorrow I’ll talk to him more. And I’ll see just how much I like him. _

He fell asleep thinking of soft curls and blue eyes and constellation freckles, and for once in Jake’s life, he slept well. 


End file.
